Revolutionary Road

I recently just finished the movie Revolutionary Road. I don't know if anyone else has seen it, it has Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, one of the first movies they did together after Titanic. The two are a young couple trying to live during the mid 1950's, and how they deal with their problems. During the movie, the two decide to move to France, and "start" a new life, one that can be more exciting than their lives now. One of the main reasons they choose France, is that DiCaprio, as the husband, went to France, and loved it. He would love the chance to go back, and figure out there what he should do with his life. So the two agreed that this would be a good idea, and that the wife, Winslet would be working, bringing in the money to allow them to live in France. To me that seemed reasonable, especially because I know in my family, my mom worked in the city, so she traveled down each week, and would stay until her work days were done. That meant that my dad took care of my brother and I, and I didn't think anything of that. But this is out of the norm of society, true society has been evolving and it has become more acceptable, but especially for the time period the movie is set in, choosing the wife to go work, while the husband stays at home was strange. And to show how strange it was, there was a scene in it, showing the couple telling their best friends/neighbors that they were moving to France, and about what they plan to do there. Upon hearing this, their friends were supportive, but then when the couple left, the neighbors started to talk more about it. The neighbor husband, didn't believe that DiCaprio and Winslet would actually go through with the plan because it was so crazy. He said something like, I can't see the man staying home and not doing anything, while his wife works... his wife is suppose to stay home. And then the wife agreed with him, saying the wife should stay home. I understand that this was more the norm back in time, but just because of the generation I live in now, it is hard for me to think of not being able to go to school, and college, and having to stay at home all day, cooking, taking care of the children, waiting for my husband to come home. I don't think I could do that at all. This was a great movie, very powerful, but one can really see the gender differences in it. There are other small things about women too, such as Winslet was pregnant with the third children, and she kept saying how she didn't want it. How she wanted to have an abortion, and that they should do it before it gets too late. I know even now abortion is a huge controversy, so the fact that it was brought up in this movie, and it was the woman's idea to have it, made the movie more interesting. Especially because the norm is women should always want and care for children, and if they don't, it looks like something is wrong with them. I am glad I got to see this movie, but now i notice that the more I watch movies or tv shows, I really look for gender differences.